Gantz: a Brand New Day
by Shinigami1300
Summary: Meet a group of kids whose lives have just abruptly ended. However, they've been given a second chance at life. A chance that could be taken away at any moment. This story chronicles their fight to survive as hunters of the mysterious black ball, Gantz.
1. Death's Song

"C'mon! Fight! Fight! Fight!"

"Left hook! The left!"

"Aim low!"

A bunch of teenagers were crowded around a small group of kids in the hallway of West Valley High School. David Kepler was shoving through the crowd, trying to get a view of what was going down. Once he finally was able to break the circle of kids and see inside his suspicions were confirmed. The boy with the buzz cut hairstyle, who was engaged in a fight with two older, tougher-looking guys, probably seniors, was David's best friend, Jack Reilly.

And, needless to say, he was getting his ass handed to him.

"Alright, now are you gonna apologize?" mocked one of the larger guys, grabbing Jack's shirt and pinning him against a locker. Jack's face was bruised and a thin line of blood was trickling from his nose.

"Oh, just go f-" Jack muttered, prompting the large guy to interrupt him with a swift punch across the face.

"The hell'd you say?" exclaimed the senior. "Sure didn't sound like an apology!"

"You're quite the perceptive guy," Jack replied mockingly. Angrily, the senior pulled back his fist to strike again, but was interrupted. David had run into the fray and tackled the assaulter before he had the chance. He managed to take him by surprise and knock him over, but this only lasted a moment. The senior was pissed and so was his friend. At this point, it was impossible to keep track of anything. Fists were flying. Jack, David, and the two seniors were going at each like there was no tomorrow. This lasted at least a minute before either somebody decided it was a good idea to get someone or the principal just happened upon the scene. Either way, Mr. Deputy, the principal of the school, was on the boys, pulling them apart.

"What the hell is going on here?" yelled Mr. Deputy. "Little! Pool! I don't know about whatever juvenile correctional facility you were last kicked out of, but we don't tolerate violence in these halls. Get your asses down to the office and I'll see you there to talk about your suspension after I'm done with these two."

Pool and Little, the two seniors, looked like they wanted to pop the guy right there as they walked away, giving Jack and David some really nasty looks as well.

"Now, you've never had any sort of behavioral problems in the past," pointed out Mr. Deputy. "But I am shocked that you would take part in something like this. I'll let the two of you off easy with a detention, but you're lucky that I don't suspend you. If I _ever_ catch you fighting in this school again, you can be sure that I will. Now, both of you go to the Nurse's office, you look like you just got hit by a truck."

With that final note, the principal gave the two boys detention slips and passes to the Nurse and walked off, yelling to the crowd of students, "And all of you, get to class!"

"Damn it," Jack muttered. "Ken's gonna kill me." Ken was Jack's older brother. Jack's parents had been killed in a car crash about a year ago and Ken was the legal guardian of Jack and his sister.

"Yeah, my parents aren't gonna be thrilled either," David added, reaching up and pushing his long hair out of his eyes.

"Why did you jump in there like that?" Jack inquired.

"Well, I don't know, I guess that's just what friends do," he replied. "Plus you were getting your ass handed to you and I wanted to save you the embarrassment," He joked. "Why were those guys attacking you anyway?"

"Well," Jack muttered. "I sort of … hit them first."

"What did they say?"

"They were making fun of Jamie," he replied. David didn't press the issue. He knew how defensive of his younger sister Jack was.

He sometimes wondered what would happen if he had to go through everything that Jack had been forced to deal with over the past year with his parents dying and having to help take care of his sister. He knew that if he ever had to then Jack would be there for him just like he had been, but he couldn't imagine how hard it would be to deal with losing somebody close to him like that.

For David, calling his parents to tell them he got a detention for getting in a fight was not exactly the highlight of his day. And detention wasn't exactly much better. A wave of relief washed over David as the clock hit five-thirty and the teacher told them all to get their stuff and go.

"My God, that was boring," Jack told his friend as they left. "I definitely don't want to have to do that again."

"Yeah, let's just go home already."

"Actually, go on ahead without me, I've got to take a leak," Jack told his friend.

"No, it's cool. I'll wait." David leaned against the wall as his friend ran into the restroom.

David waited for some minutes before he started to hear sounds coming from the bathroom. Yelling mostly, as well as the repeated flushing of a toilet, accompanied by some wild laughter. It sounded like somebody was getting a swirly in there.

David felt bad and wanted to help, but also felt that it was a bad time to be picking fights, considering what the principal had said earlier that afternoon. He looked outside and saw that the sun had dipped partly below the horizon, casting the sky in a red-orange light.

Suddenly, his heart jumped as he heard a horrible noise. BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! He froze in place. Moments later, a young boy he recognized ran out of the bathroom. His matted black hair was soaking wet and he looked ready to go to hysterics. He was a freshman that David had seen before named Joe Lincoln. He got picked on a lot. It didn't take a genius to figure out that he had been on the receiving end of the swirly David had heard in the bathroom.

He didn't even seem to notice David as he took off down the hall. Blood stained his clothes and in his hand was a nine millimeter hand gun. David was frozen in disbelief before his brain suddenly kicked into action.

"Oh God!" David screamed, bolting into the bathroom. He saw a horrible scene before him. There were six people lying on the floor, pooling blood beneath them. Four of them were unfamiliar to him. They each looked older than him, juniors or seniors. The fifth was recognizable. A senior named Harrison. The school delinquent, supposedly spent a year in juvenile hall and had been kicked out of at least three other schools. He was lying cold on the ground, a bullet hole in his forehead, cigarette still lit in his mouth.

The sixth made David want to be sick. He dropped to the ground, whimpering, "Oh, dear god, no!" On the ground was his best friend, Jack Reilly, cold and lifeless.

He tried to shake his friend, but it was to no avail. "Wake up, damn it!" His eyes filled with tears and his voice was cracking.

It had been Lincoln who did this. Everybody always talked about how he was gonna snap one day. There were rumors that he was living in foster care because his mother was murdered by his father, now in prison, when he was younger. That he was really messed up in the head and had to go to therapy for it. This was definitely not helped by the fact that he got a lot of crap from kids at school every day. But David had thought it was just talk. School kids spreading rumors and making jokes.

BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! The sound of gunshots rang through the hallway followed by shrill screams and more gunshots.

"Oh no," David muttered. He ran outside, leaving the scene in the bathroom. People were running and Lincoln was firing off shots at everyone around him.

_Jesus Christ!_ David thought before quickly and instinctively running the opposite way. He bolted around the corner and kept on running. There was an empty feeling in the pit of his stomach. His closest friend was dead and his life was in danger. This was horrible.

WHAM! He turned a corner and ran straight into somebody, sending them both to the ground. He looked up, hoping to god it wasn't Lincoln.

It wasn't. It definitely wasn't. It was a girl. She looked fifteen or sixteen, about David's age, and had long brown hair and green eyes. She looked as terrified as David. It was strange, but David had never seen her around before. She must have been in a different class than his or a different grade.

"What is going on here?" she asked, voice trembling. "Who's that crazy kid going around shooting people?"

"No time, we've got to get out of here!" David grabbed the girl's wrist and started to round the corner. Time seemed to slow to a stop as he beheld the horrifying site before them.

Lincoln was standing right at the other end of the hall, looking straight at them. He lifted the handgun up to the two. David stood, terrified, everything seeming to move in slow motion, as the bullets flew through the air, piercing his chest. He fell, hitting the ground with a thud.

He looked over at the girl beside him. She, too, was covered with bullet holes and pooling blood beneath her. They clutched each other's hands tightly, desperately grasping for some kind of human contact to hold onto as they went.

_Damn it,_ David thought. _This is how it ends? This is all so … pointless. What have I done with my life up to now? Is it really over already? Damn._

He felt the world fade to darkness. He knew it was his time and surrendered, letting death take him.

"Hey, someone else came!"

"Oh, there are two this time."

"Is anyone else going to show up? This is getting weird."

David could hear voices all around him. He could distinctly remember dying. Was he in heaven? Or was he in hell? He could feel solid ground beneath him and he was breathing air and everything. He couldn't be dead.

David opened his eyes and bolted upright. He was definitely not dead. He was in a room. He looked next to him and the girl who had died beside him was there, still holding his hand. She, too, quickly came to her senses. They hastily let go of each other's hands and stood up, embarrassed.

David examined the room. The floors were carpeted and the walls were painted white. In the center of the room was a large black sphere. Gathered around it were three people aside from David and the girl standing beside him. One was another girl, dressed in a cheerleader outfit. The boy standing next to her was a redhead, kind of tall, dressed in leather. They both looked about David's age, give or take a year. When David's eyes fell on the third fellow occupant of the room, his heart leapt with joy.

"Jack!" he screamed, running to meet his friend. Jack Reilly was indeed across the room from him, alive and well.

"David? What the hell are you doing here?" his friend inquired.

"I don't know. I could ask you the same thing," David replied. "I thought you were dead."

"Well, that makes two of us," Jack explained. "Did you … die, too?"

"Yeah," David muttered in response.

"It seems like everybody here was shot at our school like us," Jack continued explaining. "And then somehow ended up in this place."

"Kitchen's empty. All of the appliances work but there's no food or anything," said a voice from the other room. He came into the main room with the rest of them. It was Harrison, the kid David had seen with a bullet in his head. He was alright too, just like the rest of them.

"Front and back doors are locked," said a voice belonging to another boy who then entered the room as well from a different direction. This boy looked like a stereotypical Goth. His nails, clothes, and hair were all black. His hair was stuck up in short spikes.

"So, what, we're trapped?" the cheerleader asked. "Did you try picking the lock?"

"Pick it? I can't even touch the damn thing!" he exclaimed.

"Bull!" the cheerleader called out, walking into the other room, a foyer area, where the front door was. However, to her dismay, the spike-haired Goth was right. Some invisible force kept her from even laying a finger on the doorknob or the lock.

"Hey, look!" the red-haired guy pointed out. "One more's coming through."

Suddenly, David noticed a rainbow-colored beam of light shooting forth from the giant black ball in the center of the room.

_What the hell?_ he thought in disbelief as the beam started to form a person. He could see inside of the half-formed person's body and all of their organs. It was absolutely sickening. _Is this how we all appeared?_

Then, once the person had completely appeared and the rainbow light vanished, a fire ignited in David as he recognized the boy who had just appeared.

Lincoln.

How did he die? He was the one doing the shooting.

"Hey!" Harrison screamed. "That's the son of a bitch who shot us!" He, the redhead boy, and the Gothic kid all converged around Lincoln.

Naturally, the young boy was terrified. He came to the immediate conclusion that he had been sent to Hell and was now being haunted by the people he'd killed. He had started to pee his pants out of sheer terror from seeing the faces of his victims and immediately curled up in a fetal position whimpering. Before the three boys could give him the biggest ass-whooping of his life, though, they were interrupted by something rather unexpected.

The great big mysterious black ball sitting in the middle of the room began to sing.


	2. Second Chance

"_Atarashi asa ga kita_," the ball sang. "_Kibou no asa ga_._ Yorokobi ni mune wo hiroge_._ Aosora aoge_."

"What the–?" Harrison asked, examining the ball, covering his ears with his hands because the music was so loud.

"What the hell's this?" asked the redhead.

"_Rajio no koe ni_._ Sugoyaka na mune wo_._ Kono kaoru kaze ni kirakeyo_._ Sore: ichi, ni, san!_"

At the finish of the song, the surface of the ball suddenly changed. The onlookers all stared at it as a block of text appeared.

Your lives have ended.

How you use your new lives is entirely up to me.

That's the theory, anyway.

"How you use your new lives is entirely up to me?" the Goth inquired. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"This is creepy," muttered the cheerleader.

Then, the screen changed again. Now it read. "You will now go kill this thing."

"K-kill?" David stuttered.

The rest of the writing on the surface of the sphere read:

Feral Alien

Characteristics: Hairy, Violent

Likes: Raw Meat

Dislikes: Hunger, People

Favorite Phrases: N/A

Beside all of this useless information was a picture. It showed the face of something that roughly resembled a black dog, except it didn't have any eyes or ears.

Suddenly, a metallic clicking noise came from the ball and the sides of it sprung open, knocking some of the surrounding spectators back several feet.

"Whoa!" the redheaded boy exclaimed, examining the sides that had popped out of the ball. They were lined with racks of weird, science-fiction-looking guns. Some of them were handguns, others were longer, like rifles, and some others had bizarre Y-shaped protrusions on their ends. They all had small screens on the ends opposite the barrel.

"This thing looks like a toy," the redhead mocked, picking up one of the handguns and pointing it around at everyone and pretending to fire.

"Put that thing down!" David screamed instinctively. He had already been shot once that day, so he was a little edgy when it came to pointing guns around, even if they were toys.

"Fine, buzz kill. If you want it, take it," the kid replied, tossing the gun to David, who was caught off guard and had to juggle it between his hands for a second before grasping hold of it.

Letting his gun hand fall loosely to his side, David walked around behind the ball and saw that there was a stack of suitcases. He saw the top one and froze in place.

On it was written "David Kepler."

_What the hell?_ he thought, totally dumbfounded. _How is this possible?_

He lifted up the case and saw that the next one read "Jack Reilly." The one under that was "Joseph Lincoln". He continued reading the names on the rest of the cases. Ryan Harrison, James Gregory, John Allen, Alex Summer, Stephanie Wayne. There were eight total. One for everyone, he supposed.

"These cases," David called out to the others, still in disbelief himself. "They have all of our names on them!"

"What the hell are you talking about?" asked Harrison, walking over. He went to the stack and found the one that read his own name. "What the…?"

Everybody came and found the case for them.

_How is this thing supposed to open?_ David thought as he tried and failed to pry open the case. Finally, when he pushed down on two points on top of the case, it suddenly sprung open, startling him. The contents of the case were a strange sight. It appeared to be a black spandex suit, covered with little gelatinous caps. He lifted it from the case and examined it.

"What? Are we supposed to wear these things?" asked the red-haired kid, lifting his own suit out of the case, having gotten it open as well.

The cheerleader merely laughed. "I don't care what's going on, there's no way in hell I'm putting that thing on."

"Yeah, seriously," the spiky-haired Goth agreed.

As everybody else put their suits back down into their cases and left them on the ground, David, to the surprise of everyone present, picked up his case and started to walk towards the door.

"Where the hell are you going?" Harrison asked.

"Into the other room to change," David explained.

"You're not seriously going to wear that thing are you?" Jack asked with a laugh.

"Jack, we _died_, remember? And then all of the sudden we show up here!" David declared to his friend.

"Yeah, so?" Jack replied. "How does that have anything to do with spandex suits?"

"Because, it means that whatever's happening to us is _real_, and we should start taking it more seriously. If this black ball thing had these suits for us, then I'm sure as hell not gonna ignore it. It must have some significance."

"Dude, it's a suit. What significance could it possibly have?"

"We were brought back from the dead. There's some kind of force keeping us from leaving, and whoever's orchestrating all of this knows every one of us by name. At this point, anything's possible," David pointed out.

Jack contemplated this for a moment, but then smiled and said to his friend, "Yeah, I'll still pass. People say enough about me already."

David shook his head. "Whatever." He took the suit and walked off through the door opposite the one leading to the foyer. It was a room similar to the one that he had just been in except on the back wall was a sliding glass door and to the left of where he had come in was a stairway leading up to the next floor. He went to the back door and tried to slide it open, but what the spike-haired boy had said was true. Some invisible force was preventing him from even grasping the handle or touching the surface of the glass.

_This is insane,_ he thought.

He looked to the stairs and was tempted to go up but decided that now wasn't the time and instead opened the case again to take the suit out. He noticed something fall out as he did so and hit the ground with a loud thud. He bent down to examine what had fallen.

It appeared to be some kind of electronic device, like a PDA or something. There were several buttons and a large screen. _This thing is weird,_ he thought.

Meanwhile, the rest of the kids were waiting in the other room, watching the black sphere and its cryptic message. Suddenly, the surface of the sphere changed. It now showed a large countdown timer that started at one hour and ticked down, second by second. Then, the entire group turned towards Harrison and several gasps came from the crowd. The top of his head was completely gone, the rainbow light from the black ball claiming him again, making first his head and then his neck and shoulders vanish into thin air.

In the back room, David was now fully dressed in the strange suit. The gun that had been in the black sphere was still clutched tightly in his right hand and the strange device was grasped in his left. Suddenly, he snapped to attention as he viewed his reflection in the sliding glass door. Half of his head was gone!

_What the hell?_ David exclaimed, his hands shooting up to the missing part of his head. It was disappearing further, a mysterious rainbow light just like that which Lincoln had appeared in creeping down his body. _Oh, God, please let this not be it!_ he thought hopefully, shutting his eyes and holding the gun in his hand even tighter, waiting for the light to pass over his body. Soon, it had and he was gone from the mysterious manor, as were the other kids in the black ball room, consumed by the same light. And now the house was silent, as if waiting in expectation for the events to come.

David slowly opened his eyes. He felt a wave of relief that he wasn't dead again. But he wasn't in the house either. Now he had been transported to some suburban neighborhood. Everyone else was standing around him, seemingly noticing the same thing.

While they had been in the room the sun had dipped below the horizon and early evening had turned to night. It looked like they were still relatively close to home.

"What the hell? This is a couple miles from where I live," exclaimed the redheaded kid. "What was all that crap about killing a monster?"

Suddenly, David was feeling a little foolish having put on the ridiculous black suit. He loosened his grip on the gun in his hand.

"Whatever, I'm going home," declared the spiky-haired boy. "I think there's a bus station near here."

"Me too," the cheerleader added.

"Wait!" David called out. This all felt wrong to him. _Very_ wrong. "We were brought back from the dead! And now we're just going home like nothing happened?"

"Hey, count your blessings," the redhead boy responded, following the other two off down the road. Harrison was soon following suit.

"What about him?" David asked glancing over at Lincoln, who looked ready to soil himself he was so terrified.

"What are we gonna do?" redhead inquired. "Say he shot us? We don't look very dead if you ask me."

Despite what everybody was saying, something was off about the whole situation. It had seemed as if they would be sent on some big mission, not dropped right back home.

"Come on," Jack urged David. "Let's just go home and pretend none of this ever happened."

David was silent a moment before reluctantly agreeing. It wasn't as if he had any choice. _Man, now I have to go home in this stupid outfit,_ he thought as he, Jack, the girl who had been with David at the school, and Lincoln all followed the rest of the group as they walked down the street.

David got himself thinking for a minute. This was a good thing. Despite all of the mystery and the horrible things that had happened, they were all being given a second chance at life. It was good. But something in David's gut argued that point. Something wasn't right.

"Hey, I see someone!" the spiky-haired kid exclaimed. He walked over to a man in a red jogging suit, running down the empty night street. "Yo, dude! Do you know where the nearest bus station is?"

There was no response.

The cheerleader piped up, raising her voice. "Hey! Do you know where the closest bus station is?"

The jogger still paid no heed. He only continued his run as normal, not so much as glancing at the group of teens.

At this point the man had stopped to check his pulse and David approached him. "He really can't see us," he examined, waving his hand in front of the man's face before he took off at a jog again.

"What the hell is going on?" wondered Jack as the man took off.

"This shit's getting' too weird," the Goth exclaimed, taking off down the road. "I'll find the bus stop myself."

Oddly, David's mind jumped to the handheld device that had been with his suit all of the sudden. He took it out and examined it. The screen seemed to show a map of the region. In the center of the screen, a red triangle that he assumed represented their current position was sitting right next to the edge of a large rectangular box that surrounded it and a very large portion of the map itself. Judging by the area of the map it covered, David guessed that the box was about a mile and a half square, give or take.

Suddenly, David noticed a steady, irritating beeping noise in his ear, his head pounding with every beep. He wasn't aware, but the whole group was hearing the same noise.

BLAM! David snapped to attention as an explosive noise was immediately followed by screams and the sound of somebody vomiting (Lincoln). He was horrified at what he saw. It was unbelievable. Sickening.

He saw the Goth boy who had been at the head of the group. His body slumped lifelessly to the ground. His entire head was missing. It had exploded before their very eyes.

His second chance was taken away from him, just like that.


	3. Left for Dead

David looked at the headless body of the spike-haired boy. It was horrible. His entire head was gone! Blood was spewing everywhere and he almost wanted to throw up just like Lincoln had.

The cheerleader gave out a shrill cry of shock and terror before taking off running as if the devil were at her heels.

BLAM! David wouldn't have believed it if he hadn't seen it, but the girl's head simply exploded. She fell to the ground next to the spiky-haired Goth.

David was stunned speechless. They were dead. They had been granted another chance at life only to have it snatched away in the next breath. It was cruel. Cruel and sick.

The entire remaining group seemed to share this moment of shocked silence. But it was only for a moment. After that, all hell broke loose. Screaming and running and panic ensued among the other remaining kids. David remained perfectly still, though, staring at the two who had fallen, dumbstruck.

Suddenly, though, a thought occurred to him. _Why would they die at the exact same spot?_ He quickly looked at the radar he had gotten from the black ball. He saw the rectangular border and roughly judged the distance between it and the arrow by the houses on the map around it, trying to think amongst the chaos. It fit. He suddenly broke his silence and screamed into the panicked crowd, "_Everybody stop!_" The group halted and stared at him.

"Listen!" he declared. He held up the radar screen and pointed to the bodies. "I think there's some kind of fence there. An invisible border surrounding us that we can't exit or else…" He let the words hang. The bodies lying heaped on the pavement were indication enough. "Anyway, let's all just calm down. We just have to stop and slowly back away from the line. I'll go first and everybody calmly follow me." He began to walk backwards from the spot where the Goth and the cheerleader lay, one step at a time. Eventually, the painful beeping in his head subsided to a dull throb and he ushered the others to follow him. He could see the red arrow start to move away from the border ever so slightly even before the rest of the group followed his example.

"The beeping stopped," noted the red-haired boy.

"It must be an indicator that we're getting too close to the border," David surmised. "If anybody hears that noise, stop immediately and turn around."

"Resurrections, black balls, exploding heads, invisible lines! _What the hell is going on here!_" Harrison exclaimed angrily.

_Man, what _is _going on here?_ David thought to himself. _We're stuck inside this border for God knows how long and we have no idea what we're supposed to do. Now I wish we _could_ just go home._

Did this have something to do with what was on that ball's surface? Something about an alien dog, David couldn't remember.

David looked to the girl standing next to him. The one whose hand he had held as they died. She was staring at the bodies with her hand to her mouth. She didn't look too great.

"Hey, are you o-?" he began to inquire. She abruptly keeled over and heaved onto the pavement. _Lovely,_ he thought sarcastically, backing away from her a step or two.

"Guys," muttered Lincoln weakly.

"Ew, did she just throw up?" Harrison exclaimed. "Jeez, I know there are the headless corpses and all but, seriously, that's just nasty."

"Guys!"

"_What?_" shouted Harrison. "If you've come to tell us you pissed yourself again, then just can it already because nobody gives a – oh shit!"

The whole group turned to see what had captured Lincoln and Harrison's attention. Lincoln (who apparently _had_ actually wet his pants at the sight) was staring down the street at a familiar-looking creature. It was a large beast, its body like a dog, but extending at least five or six feet in length. Its head, however, was much longer and thinner, with no eyes or ears that could be seen. Yellow, bony spikes were running down its spine and sleek black fur covered its body. It was without a doubt the creature on the black sphere.

"You with the gun! Shoot it!" the redhead exclaimed at David.

David was frozen in place, his gun hand shaking at his side. He was gripped with fear. The feral alien let out an earsplitting roar and David was snapped out of it. He lifted the gun and pulled the top trigger.

Nothing happened.

"Screw this!" the redhead shouted, frightened. He took off as fast as he could.

"Where the hell are you going?" Harrison cried. But he was already out of earshot. "Ass," he muttered.

The panic settled in again. This gun really was a useless toy. The beast got bored of standing around and now was starting towards them at a run.

"Run!" he screamed to the others. He picked up his feet and took off. The others quickly followed suit.

"I'm in hell, I'm in hell, I'm in hell," Lincoln muttered to himself repeatedly.

"Shut up!" Jack screamed.

"Listen," David said. "We need to find somewhere to hide where that … _thing_ hopefully won't find us."

"I know this neighborhood," Harrison explained. "There's an empty house nearby. Some old guy who used to live there kicked it a little while back. We could hide in the basement. I think it's pretty secure. I heard the crazy old guy built a bomb shelter down there or something."

"Lead the way!"

Harrison took them down the street. David occasionally checked the radar on his handheld device to see that the red dot he assumed represented the alien wasn't catching up. It still hadn't even rounded that last corner. It looked fast but it was toying with them at the moment and holding back, so they were able to stay ahead. It wouldn't last long. It'd get bored eventually.

When they reached the house Harrison had spoken of, they filed in through a solid metal cellar hatch around the back. Luckily, it wasn't locked.

"Won't this look suspicious, breaking in like this? Someone might call the cops," Jack pointed out.

"Nobody can see us, remember, dumbass?" Harrison sniped in reply.

Once everyone was inside, they locked and barred the door behind them. Relieved, they sat in the dark room, waiting.

Somebody managed to find a light switch and flipped it, casting a dim glow over everything and David was able to get a good look at it. It was a simple-looking place, but it wasn't hard to believe what Harrison had said about the previous tenant turning it into a bomb shelter. There was a wall completely covered with shelves, as if there were normally large storages of food there. It was bare now, though, most likely because it had been cleared when the owner died. To the opposite end of the room was a two-seat couch, an old television set that looked like it didn't even work, a desk with a rusty metal chair, and a mini-fridge sitting in the corner, collecting dust.

Seconds dragged on into minutes as the group sat silently, hoping the alien didn't find them in their hiding place.

"Well, no food in the fridge," Harrison announced, slamming the appliance shut.

David was sitting at a desk. He checked the radar device, but the map and radar suddenly disappeared. In its place was a timer set at thirty minutes and counting down. Unbeknownst to the teens, back in the black ball's room, the timer on the face of the sphere had reached thirty minutes and counting as well.

Frustrated, David pressed all of the buttons he could find, trying to get the screen to change back, but it was to no avail.

"What's wrong?" asked the girl, sitting down on top of the desk next to David.

"This stupid thing," he answered. "It won't tell me where that alien is. I just hope it doesn't come anywhere near us."

"That thing …" she whispered. "Is it … really an alien, do you think?"

David thought about it. _How the hell should I know?_ was what he was thinking, but what came out when he opened his mouth was, "Don't worry about anything. It'll all be fine. I'll make sure that nothing happens to you … um …"

"Alex. Alex Summer," the girl answered with a smile and a laugh. "And that was pretty cliché, I've got to admit, but sweet. Thank you."

David laughed in return, despite the situation. "Yeah, sorry, I don't know where that all came from. It's David, by the way. David Kepler."

It was strange. They had been together all that time since they arrived in that room. They had even died together, clutching each others' hands as they did, yet this was the first real conversation they had ever had.

BANG! BANG! BANG! Somebody or some_thing_ was pounding as hard as they could against the cellar door that they had entered through.

"Damn it!" Harrison screamed. "How did that thing find us?"

"It could just be the neighbors or something," Alex interjected. "Maybe they really did see us come in here."

"Well, do _you_ want to go check?" Harrison sniped back at her.

"Chill out," muttered Lincoln, a touch of fear in his voice.

"Oh, you want me to chill out?" he cried back to him. "Hey, I've got an idea! Why don't we feed _him_ to the alien, huh?" He suddenly brandished David's gun and pointed it at Lincoln, pushing him back until his back was to the door. David quickly reached for the end of the desk where he had set the gun down. Gone. Harrison must have taken it while he wasn't paying attention.

"Hey!" Jack yelled. "We all need to just calm down here. And don't go pointing that thing around! We're not feeding _anyone_ to the alien."

"_Did you forget what this asshole did to us?_ He's the reason we're here!"

"I'm … I'm sorry," Lincoln muttered under his breath. "I'm sorry." Tears were falling from his eyes.

"Oh, you're sorry, are you?" Harrison inquired sarcastically, jabbing the gun into Lincoln's chest. "Then why'd you do it, huh?"

"Harrison..." Alex muttered, trying to stop him, but the words were caught in her throat.

"It just… It was too much. I couldn't take it anymore…" the boy was in hysterics now. "I'm so sorry … I'm so sorry."

"Oh, you couldn't handle the pressures of life so you _shot over a dozen people?_ How do we know you're sorry and not just scared because I'm holding a gun, huh?" Harrison asked.

"Just calm down, Harrison!" David tried to say, stepping towards them.

"_I KILLED MYSELF, DIDN'T I? ISN'T THAT ENOUGH FOR YOU!_" Lincoln screamed frantically, tears still streaming down his face.

So that was it. Ever since Lincoln arrived in the room David wondered how he had ended up dead like the rest of them.

Suddenly, this moment of thought was broken as the metal of the hatch behind Lincoln rent and tore like paper. Before anybody could register anything had happened, there were four long blades protruding through Lincoln's heart. Time seemed to slow down for a brief moment before the feral alien burst through the torn-up metal doors and ripped through the young man like a knife through butter, discarding the remains to the side.

So much for this being a bomb shelter. It couldn't even keep that thing from coming right in the door.

Harrison fearfully raised the gun, hoping to defend himself, repeatedly pressing one of the triggers, but the gun refused to fire. The alien charged for him. Fear gripped him for a moment.

Suddenly, David was overcome with determination. He'd seen enough death. Before he knew what he was doing, he leapt through the air and struck the beast hard in the side, sending them both flying across the room. They crashed into the wall, causing the concrete to crumble away, revealing a solid sheet of metal that they'd hardly dented.

David was astounded by the strength that had gone behind the assault. He expected to distract the alien, not send it flying. He looked down at his own body. His muscles were bulging like he was on steroids and he felt a rush of adrenaline like nothing he'd ever felt before. He liked it.

This power high lasted until the alien came to from the shock of being launched across the room. It soon turned on David, driving him into a corner and hacking away at him with its claws. He screamed to the others, "Run!"

"But y–" Jack tried to protest.

"RUN!" he ordered. The rest of his friends turned tail and ran out through the cellar hatch, trying to get as far away as possible, not even taking a moment to glance back.

_Oh god, this is it,_ he thought. He was gonna die, for real this time. No black balls, no second chances. This was it. He braced himself, and finally the creature pounced through the air and landed on him, ready to tear him to shreds.

As Jack, Alex, and Harrison got about a block away from the hatch, they could see the feral alien start to come out of the basement. That meant that the job had been done. David was gone.

Alex tried to speak between panting breaths as she ran alongside the others. "We … we left … David back there! We left him and let that thing kill him!"

"Oh, to hell with _David_! What about us?" Harrison screamed. "You saw what that thing did to that kid Lincoln. We're next!"

Jack tried to maintain his composure, but inside he was a horrible mess. He was right there as his friend was being attacked and he simply ran away. His best friend was gone now all because of him. It was tearing him apart. It didn't help that the hulking monster had suddenly taken an interest in them and started to make pursuit.

"_Shit!_" Harrison screamed furiously.

"What?" Alex asked breathlessly. "What's wrong?"

"I dropped the gun back in there! We're screwed!"


	4. Home

David had expected the alien to tear him to shreds. His muscles bulged as he tried to get a hold of the monster, but he was pinned beneath its weight. The feral alien continued to assault him until becoming bored and taking off out the exit towards the others.

The youth was shocked to find himself completely unscathed. It was as if the claws grazed him without leaving so much as a mark. He felt his chest where the monster had been tearing at him. The material of the black suit he had put on before being sent on the mission was not torn. He felt his face. Even it was unharmed.

_It's this suit,_ he thought. _It makes me invincible!_

He looked to where he saw the handgun that he had taken from the black ball, lying forlorn on the ground. Harrison must've dropped it. He reached out and gripped its handle.

"It's gaining!" Alex screamed. They were running through some kind of park. They could see a jungle gym and a small slide as they ran past.

"Split up! It can't get all of us!"

"Yeah, but then one of us is boned!" Harrison pointed out.

"You got a better idea?" Jack hollered.

Suddenly, it didn't matter. The beast was upon them, pouncing through the air. The three children lying below were frozen in fear, unable to even scream for help.

David was running up behind the beast as it chased the others. He aimed the gun. _Which trigger? Ah, hell, I'll just hit both!_ As he squeezed the triggers together, a bright flashing light shot from the mouth of the gun. The feral alien pounced. _Damn it! It didn't–_

David's thought train was interrupted as a huge cloud of dirt blew into the air with a loud boom. The ground beneath the alien had exploded, sending plants, dirt, and dust flying into the air in all directions.

_Jesus, these things are explosive?_ David thought, shocked.

The other children's hearts skipped a beat as the explosion distracted the beast, causing it to face plant in the ground in front of them. It roared angrily and turned its attention to David, charging for him.

As the alien rushed him, David felt the muscles in his legs bulge. He leapt at least twelve feet into the air, avoiding the charge of the alien. As he arced through the air, he pointed his gun down and fired off three successive bursts of light.

He hardly landed with the grace of a gymnast. As opposed to sticking the landing, his legs buckled as he hit the ground, sending him down on his ass, hard.

BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! The explosions from the shots David had fired sounded. The first one demolished a set of monkey bars. It was a good thing that the park was in desperate need of renovation and was therefore completely deserted. The second shot went off in the ground directly next to the alien, searing its side and blowing off a small chunk of its flesh. Finally, the third had hit the mark. The alien's right front leg started to bulge like a balloon, before exploding in a shower of guts and blood. David felt like he was gonna be sick.

The beast let out a tremendous roar of pain and charged David, half-running, half-limping, but still fast as ever, driven by a blind madness. David raised the gun and fired off three more successive shots. As the alien charged, its left leg bulged and exploded. Then, as it collapsed, a huge chunk of its lower right torso was blown away. It collided with the ground hard before its left shoulder suddenly blew off of its body.

Taking the opportunity, David rushed over to the fallen beast and jammed the gun into its face, but paused. The alien was whining and whimpering like a puppy. It seemed so much less monstrous than it had a second earlier. He knew that he had to save his friends, but he couldn't bring himself to do it.

"What are you waiting for? Shoot it!" Harrison screamed.

"This is wrong," he replied, shaking. "It … it's helpless now. What good would killing it do?"

"The thing tried to kill _us_!"

David shook his head and lowered his gun. "I just … I can't."

Unknowingly to the group, on the handheld device and back in the black ball's room, the timer that had been counting down reached past five minutes.

Harrison snatched the gun out of David's hand, pointed it directly at the alien's forehead and squeezed the triggers. A bright flash of light could be seen followed by a shocked silence covering the entire group. Several moments passed before the alien howled and moaned in pain, its head bulging. BLAM! Blood and guts sprayed over David and Harrison.

Shoving the gun back into David's hand, Harrison walked away with a severe expression on his face. "There."

David could only stare with horror at the site of the merciless act. "Why would you _do_ that? It was helpless! It couldn't hurt us anymore!"

"Oh, don't give me that bull. That thing caused us enough misery!" Harrison exclaimed.

"Is this it?" Alex asked tentatively. "Do we get to go back now?"

"I don't know," Jack replied.

Suddenly, an earsplitting howl shook the air and made the very ground shake a little. All four remaining kids snapped their attention over to the source of the noise. To their horror, a beast stood across the park from them. It looked similar to the one Harrison had just killed, but it was at least twice the size and its fur was a dark shade of blood red.

It was mean, deadly, and they had just killed its friend.

"Oh, son of a bitch!" Harrison screamed. "Shoot it! Quick!"

David held up the gun and took aim, but the new monster took action first. It traversed the distance between them in a matter of seconds. David tried to fire off a shot, but it just caused a jungle gym to explode behind it in a fantastic shower of metal and plastic. Before anyone could blink twice, it had come up to Harrison and raised a paw with claws at least a foot long up into the air, slicing right through the boy's left arm, causing him to scream in agony.

Harrison collapsed to the ground. David was shocked when he saw that Harrison's entire arm was now completely severed. He continued to scream and writhe and the ground in pain, his arm forlorn on the ground beside him.

Before the alien could finish the job, David managed to point the gun its way and pull the triggers, but it moved before the light flashed in the barrel. Now it was coming at David.

_Damn it!_ He tried to point the gun at it, but before he could it had already gotten to him. It brought its paw into his stomach, sending him flying through the air with force. The impact felt devastating as he struck a merry-go-round several yards away, demolishing it.

He could feel juices running down his body as the many gelatinous caps covering the black suit started to liquefy. He felt strength leave his body and knew the suit was useless now. The alien was coming at him fast. He raised the gun but knew he didn't have enough time. He had felt death once before but didn't think he'd be meeting it again so soon. He braced himself.

But the terrifying pain of having the razor claws tear through his flesh never came. Instead, there was a terrible howl coming from the monster as a broken metal pole pierced its side. It turned to see Jack, who had found the pole among the wreckage of the destroyed jungle gym and thrown it across the way at the beast. Like an act of god, the piece of metal had soared through the air like the arrow of a master bowman let loose, meeting its mark.

David saw that the monster was distracted and knew it was his first and last chance. He took aim with the gun and squeezed the triggers, holding tight until the gun had flashed at least six times. The youth was shaking and hyperventilating, waiting with anticipation for something to happen.

The alien merely stood, frozen, as if knowing what was coming. After a moment that lasted an eternity had passed in dead silence, spots all over the beast's body started to bulge and burst, sending blood and guts all over the surrounding field.

After the final explosion was done and the monster collapsed lifeless to the dirt, David fell to his knees, breathing heavily. It was finally over.

The timer on the black ball reached down below a minute.

David and Jack rushed over to Alex, who was kneeling over Harrison. The stub where his arm had once been was still bleeding profusely. He wasn't screaming anymore though. That wasn't a good sign.

"Is he okay?" David asked frantically.

"I don't know," Alex replied. "He's losing blood and he looks unconscious. I don't know how long he'll last!"

David looked over at Jack, but suddenly recoiled, revolted and shocked at what he was seeing. Alex suddenly noticed too. The top of Jack's head was disappearing, revealing part of his brain. A rainbow light was making its way down his body, just like when they had appeared and disappeared in the black ball's house.

"Yah!" Jack screamed in surprise, reaching up to his face before the light went over his entire head and his torso started to disappear.

The timer reached thirty seconds.

Alex shrieked as well as she too started to get consumed by the rainbow light. At this point, Jack was almost completely gone.

"What's going on?" Alex yelled before the light made her mouth disappear, proceeding to the rest of her body.

David looked down at Harrison. His face was pale and he looked like he was nearly dead.

_Damn it!_ David wanted to scream to the heavens. He dropped down to kneel over Harrison. "Come on, damn it! Wake up! Just hold on! We'll get you to a hospital, we'll do something! Just _hold on_!"

Suddenly, David reached up and felt that the tip of his hair had vanished, followed by the top of his head. He cursed to himself and yelled louder at Harrison. "Hold on a little while longer!" But then he felt the light pass over his eyes and the scene before him changed completely. He was back in the black ball room. On the ball was a timer that had reached down to ten seconds and continued to tick. David looked down at his suit. The caps were solid again and he no longer felt bruised and sore from the impact with the merry-go-round.

"Is Harrison…?" Alex asked shakily, not wanting to finish it.

Suddenly, another rainbow beam shot forth from the sphere in the center of the room. It pointed to the ground, slowly starting to form into a familiar shape.

"Harrison!" David exclaimed. He looked down at him, now in perfect shape. His arm was back and he was as healthy as ever.

"What the hell?" Harrison muttered. "My arm…"

But it wasn't over yet. There was one more person coming. As the person formed, everyone recognized him. The redheaded boy who had run off when the alien appeared.

"You?" Harrison asked. "Where the hell did you go? Jesus Christ, what was the big idea, running off like that and leaving us to deal with the two huge-ass aliens?"

"T-two?" he asked shakily. "What? What happened after I left?"

"Long story," David stated simply. "Let's get into it later."

Suddenly, the timer stopped at two seconds and disappeared. A message was now displayed, reading "Alright. Let's start the scoring now."

"Scoring?" Alex exclaimed. "We get _scored_?"

The screen on the surface of the sphere changed once again. This time it showed a cartoon drawing of Jack's head and shoulders. Written next to it was "Crew Cut. 0 points. Too much running. Not enough killing."

Harrison was cracking up and David couldn't help but grin as Jack defensively raised a hand to his buzz cut hair.

The screen changed again to a poorly-drawn picture of Alex. It read: "Useless Bitch. 0 points. Next time try actually doing something."

Alex pouted furiously. "Useless bitch?" Harrison was hysterical with laughter. She turned and gave him an angry look and sniped, "And to think I was worried about you."

The screen came up with the redhead's face. "Houdini. 0 points. At least the useless bitch was actually there." Harrison got a good chuckle out of that one as well. Alex was still pouting.

Then, the screen changed again and the entire room was chuckling, save for one. This time, it was Harrison's turn. "Serial Killer. 3 points. Total 3 points. 97 left to go."

Harrison responded coldly to everyone's laughter. "Hey, at least I did better than you assholes," he said icily.

The screen on the sphere changed once again, now showing cartoon David in the Gantz suit. "Shaggy. 5 points. Total 5 points. 95 left to go."

"Wait, I think I get it," Jack said. "We get scored based on the aliens we kill. That's why David and Harrison got higher scores. David got more because he killed the big one."

_95 left? What happens at 100? And if we're not there yet, then does that mean we're going to get sent on another one of these missions?_ David thought.

The sphere's screen went blank. Nothing else came up. There wasn't another mission. They were just sitting and waiting.

A couple of minutes passed without anyone really talking to each other. They were all just wondering what they were supposed to do.

"Hey!" came Jack's voice suddenly from the foyer. They rushed towards him. He was standing by the front door to the house, holding it open. "Door's open," he declared. "We can leave now!"

A wave of relief washed over the entire group. They knew deep in their hearts that this wasn't over. That they'd see the black ball again before too long. But they didn't care all that much. All they cared about was that they were finally going home.


	5. Here We Go Again

Author's Note: Sorry that this chapter took so long to get out. I was plagued with a massive case of writer's block. It's kind of a long one compared to the previous chapters. I hope it was worth the wait.

* * *

David, Jack, Alex, Harrison, and the redheaded boy – whose name was apparently Jim – were sitting in the near-empty bus as it strolled through the night. Before they left the house David had changed out of the mysterious suit and back into his regular clothes. The teens were all dead silent for several minutes before David finally broke the ice.

"What should we do? About everything that happened, I mean," David inquired of the others.

"Nobody will believe us if we tell them," pointed out Alex.

"What if we showed them the house and the black ball?" suggested Jack.

"Won't prove anything," Harrison chimed in. "As far as anyone who sees it can tell it's just a weird house. They won't see what we saw last night. No aliens or exploding heads or anything."

David didn't like it but he knew that Alex and Harrison were right. "I think we should lie," he proposed simply. "Say that we ran away during the shooting at school and were too afraid to come forward at first."

"Why?" Jim snapped. "I mean, sure, it's possible nobody'll believe us, but still–"

"Just think about it," said David. "The doors seal off while we're there, there's an invisible fence that makes our heads explode, we're invisible to everybody around us. There's someone … some_thing_ running the show here, and it doesn't want to get found out. I just … don't want to take any chances."

Jack was the first one to speak. "I agree."

Harrison raised his hand. "I'm with Shaggy on this one too," he declared.

A brief moment passed before Alex also said, "He's got a good point. I think he's right."

Jim looked down thoughtfully and bit his lower lip as the rest of the group stared at him. It was a while before he finally said, "Oh, alright, fine. I don't like it but I'll do it."

"Alright, so it's decided then," David stated bluntly. "We lie."

* * *

David lamented over the horrors of that day as the bus rolled to a stop at the street corner where he, Jack, and Harrison were getting off. Alex and Jim had already gotten off at their stops at this point after the whole group had worked out a good enough cover story.

David waved to the bus driver as he shut the door and rolled away from the group.

In the moment of awkward silence between the three, Harrison put a cigarette in his mouth, lit it up, and took a long drag from it.

"You know, those things will kill you," said Jack.

Harrison turned to him with a severe expression that stated simply "you're kidding me, right?"

David broke the awkward tension. "So you live that way, right?" he asked Harrison. "I guess we part ways here then."

"Yeah. Later," Harrison said, turning and walking away from the two. After a second he stopped and turned his head back. "Oh and … thanks … I guess. For, you know … saving my ass back in that basement." He quickly spun back around and walked away again at a faster-than-normal speed.

"That seemed slightly out of character," David pointed out after Harrison was out of sight and he and Jack started off towards their neighborhood.

"Yeah, I guess he's not a complete jerk after all," added Jack.

They stayed mostly silent for the walk home. When they finally reached the street where they were to part ways, David turned to Jack and asked, "Do you want to just come over to my house for the night? It's closer and I'm sure my parents wouldn't mind."

"No thanks," Jack replied. "Ken and Jamie will be worried about me. Especially after everything that happened at the school."

"Ok, I'll see you later then."

Jack waved David goodbye and took off towards his apartment complex, leaving David alone in the night, feeling more ready for this day to be over than ever before. When David finally got home, he saw two police cars parked outside his house.

_I guess this night is just never gonna end, _the boy thought before he walked towards the house, running over the cover story in his head one last time.

* * *

Alex walked into her room, shut the door behind her, and turned the lock before plopping onto her bed. She didn't normally lock her door, but she really felt like she needed to be alone right now.

She had just gotten done telling her parents and the police everything that had happened to the five of them after the shooting. Or, rather, everything they had come up with on the bus. It was a strange feeling, lying to them like that. Had she ever actually lied to her parents before? She must have. Yet she couldn't think of a single time. She certainly didn't like it.

She had gotten used to asking them for help and advice, allowing them to comfort her when she was facing hardship. Having this great weight on her shoulders and not being able to consult them for aid created a chasm between them that made her feel very lonely.

She sighed and rolled over onto her side, ready to forget about the events of the previous day and finally let sleep take her.

* * *

"Thank you for your cooperation," one of the police officers said as they walked out the door of Jack's apartment. "We'll call you if we have any more questions."

"Have a nice night," said Jack's twenty-three-year-old brother, Ken, before he shut the door behind them.

Jack let out a sigh of relief and dropped down onto the sofa. Would this night ever be over?

"Jack?" asked Ken tentatively.

"What's up?"

"What's going on with you?" he inquired. Jack and Ken were very close and knew each other better than anyone else. When something was wrong with Jack, Ken would be the first one to see.

"Nothing," Jack replied simply, trying to brush off the question. "I've just had a pretty hectic day if you remember."

Ken walked over to his younger brother, who was averting his gaze, and looked him straight in the eyes. "Jack, I want you to look at me and tell me that everything you told those officers was the truth. Just tell me to my face and I'll believe you."

A horrible feeling welled up in Jack's stomach. He hid his discomfort and spoke as calmly and sincerely as possible. "Of course it was all true. Why would I lie about something like that?"

Ken looked at his brother for a second longer. Then, finally, after a long and awkward silence, he backed off. "Alright. Can you go help Jamie get ready for bed?"

Jack nodded, still feeling shaken up after having to outright lie to his brother's face like that, and walked off to his younger sister's room. The room he came to was completely dark, illuminated only by the glow coming from the open hallway door. He walked in and turned on the lights.

"Ken?" the young, twelve-year-old girl inquired in a sweet, innocent voice. She was a small, feeble-looking girl. Parked by the door to the room was a wheelchair. Jamie turned to her brother, looking at him with blank, soulless eyes. White eyes, devoid of life. Blind eyes. "No. Jack. I recognize those footsteps."

"You know, you don't have to sit in the dark," stated Jack.

"Oh. I didn't realize the lights were off," she said nonchalantly. She took on a very serious tone. "I was so worried about you, Jack. Ken said you got into a fight, then you didn't come home from school, and then the police came and said something happened there and people got hurt. I thought that you…"

Jack didn't have the heart to tell his sister what really happened. What almost became of him. Images flashed through his mind of the bathroom. Those kids picking on Lincoln getting mercilessly gunned down. Seeing the gun turned on him. He shook the thought out of his mind. "Everything's fine, don't worry about it," he reassured his sister.

"Good," said Jamie. "I never want you to get hurt."

"I won't be," Jack assured her. "Now, let's get you ready for bed."

* * *

Two days passed after that night, and things had seemed to settle down some for Alex. People for the most part stopped asking her about what happened and the police were still fruitlessly looking for the kids who were still missing. The ones that Alex had seen brutally killed before her very eyes. It wasn't something she could ever forget.

Alex's thoughts were disrupted by the ringing of a telephone. She walked over and went to pick it up.

"Um, hello, is Alex Summer there?" the voice asked tentatively when she answered.

Alex was surprised. "David?" she said, recognizing the voice. "How did you get my number?"

"Phone book," he stated simply. "People still use those things. Who knew?" he joked. "Anyway, sorry to call you up so suddenly like this."

"It's no problem," she said, briefly looking around to see if her parents were nearby, in case anything alien-related came up. "What's up?"

"Well, Jack and I were planning on heading down to the house tomorrow. You know … _the_ house."

"Yeah, I know which one." Her grip tightened on the phone.

"Anyway, I was wondering if you wanted to tag along."

Alex thought about it. She didn't have plans, but … her hands started shaking at the thought of what had occurred when they last went there. She didn't know if she could handle reliving all of that. Seeing that place would just be too much for her.

"Um, sorry, I can't. I actually have s-something to do tomorrow," she said shakily. A lie.

"Are you alright?" David asked, concerned.

"I'm fine," she said, steadying herself. Another lie.

"Ok. I guess I'll see you around then."

"Yeah. See you." She hung up the phone. Why had she felt the need to lie? She could've easily told David how she felt about going to the house. It seemed like she was just telling one lie after another these days. It was as if that was all she knew how to do anymore.

* * *

"How long is this gonna be again?" Jack inquired of his friend as they biked to where they remembered the house with the black sphere being.

"I don't know, a couple more minutes maybe," David replied.

"Why are we going back to this place anyway?"

"I told you before. I just want to see it again. Make sure that night was … real. Whenever I think about it, it feels like it was just a twisted nightmare or something."

Jack groaned. "That's it? We couldn't have just stayed home and reminisced?"

"Why did you even come if all you're gonna do is complain the whole way?" David asked.

"To be fair, I warned you that I was gonna complain the whole way. And somebody needed to watch your back, since no one else wanted to. What were their excuses again?"

"Well, Jim was busy with some kind of family thing and Alex said she had something to do today," David explained.

"And Harrison?"

David laughed. "Are you kidding? He didn't even answer the phone."

The two turned onto the street of the mysterious house. Memories came back of the walk to the bus stop. The mutual silence. The blissful joy of leaving the horrific events of that night behind them mixed with the residual memories of the living nightmare that had previously taken place.

"There it is," Jack said somberly. The house loomed before them. "Real enough for you?"

David didn't respond. Instead he simply stared intently at the building for a few moments before hopping down from his bike and setting it down on the poorly-maintained lawn. He took off across the lawn towards the house.

"Where are you going?" Jack called out.

By the time Jack caught up to his friend, David was already trying the doorknob. "You're not seriously going in there?" he asked incredulously.

David jiggled the knob fruitlessly before giving up. "No. It's locked. Figures."

"Let's just get out of here," Jack begged. "This place creeps me out."

David nodded solemnly and they walked back towards their bikes. He mounted his and gave one last look at the accursed manor before pedaling off.

* * *

"Police are still investigating the whereabouts of the three teenagers who went missing after a gruesome shooting at West Valley High School that claimed over a dozen victims," a female reporter explained on the television screen. "Among the missing children are Stephanie Wayne, 16, Joseph Lincoln, 14, and John Allen, 17. If anyone has any information regarding the whereabouts of these children, please the police hotline number shown on the screen. The gun that was used in the shooting was registered to the foster father of Joseph Lincoln and was stolen from its case on the day of the shooting. No word yet on whether Lincoln is officially a suspect in the shooting but police–"

Jim clicked the remote and turned off the TV. He couldn't bear to watch it anymore.

The boy sitting next to Jim bore a striking resemblance to him. In fact they looked exactly alike except for the way the boy's red hair was parted off the side. "That's pretty crazy," Jim's brother commented. "They still haven't found them? I wonder where they are. You'd think they'd have shown up by now if they ran off like you did."

"Yeah," Jim muttered absent-mindedly. "Crazy." He ached to tell his brother that he knew exactly what happened to them. They were dead. Granted a brief reprieve from death only to be killed again shortly after. But he couldn't. Could he? He remembered David's words on the bus that night. _"__There's someone … some_thing_ running the show here, and it doesn't want to get found out. I just … don't want to take any chances."_

_Chances,_ Jim thought. That was it. He didn't want to take a chance. He was just being overly cautious. They didn't need to keep up this charade. What could possibly happen?

"Hey, you feeling alright man?" Jim's brother asked, concerned. "You've been really distant ever since that day at the school."

"Rich, there's something I have to tell you," Jim said, finally giving in.

"Hm?" Rich asked, curious.

Jim took a deep breath and started to explain everything that happened on that night that felt like a lifetime ago. And the more he explained, the more Rich's eyes grew as he sensed the sincerity in his brother's voice. The things he was describing were unreal. Impossible. But somehow he knew they were true.

"And then I heard this sound. I looked and it was the dog thing from the screen on the black ball. I was yelling at the other guy to shoot but he wouldn't so I just ran–"

And then it happened. It all happened so fast that Rich couldn't even believe his eyes at first. His face was frozen in shock and horror as blood spattered all over him.

His brother's head had exploded right before his eyes.

* * *

Alex turned off the TV as the report on the school shooting finished. It was killing her to lie to everyone like this but she knew she had to. What a nightmare.

She suddenly wished David were there. He was the only one she could be honest with. After all, he was living this nightmare with her. But that would have to wait for another day. It was already too late to be calling anyone tonight, and she would feel strange just calling him up out of the blue anyway. I mean, she barely knew him after all.

Alex sat up in bed and caught reflection on the blank television screen. Her hearts sank as she saw that the top of her head was gone and the rest was disappearing with it. Ever since that night she'd had a feeling it wasn't over; that they'd see the black ball again. And so they would.

"Here we go again," she muttered, bracing herself as the light took her.


	6. Something I'm Not

Alex found herself standing in the room of the black sphere once again. Only now was the reality of this situation truly sinking in. She was back in this horrible place, reliving the nightmare. They'd have to put their lives on the line, kill to survive. Would this ever end?

She gazed around and noticed David and Harrison across the room from her, with two strange men beside them. One of them seemed timid and frightened. He was dressed in a business suit and was trembling, visibly terrified of the situation he was in. The other one took Alex by surprise when she first met eyes with him. He wasn't frightened; not in the least. His steely-gray eyes were so cold. Calculating. Like he was attentively watching everything going on, taking in all of the information around him without giving off so much as a hint of emotion. He was a physically intimidating man as well. He was dark-skinned, hair in a military-style buzz cut, standing at around six feet tall and being noticeably well-built.

"Glad you could make it to the party," Harrison chided, taking a drag from the lit cigarette in his hand.

"Do you really need to smoke in here?" the timid stranger snapped indignantly. Harrison gave him a hostile look for a moment before responding by blowing a large cloud of smoke in his face, sending the man into a coughing fit.

The scene was interrupted as another ray of light shot out from the sphere and a figure emerged. Jack.

The timid man in the suit was noticeably disconcerted at the sight of Jack's innards as he materialized. He turned away. When Jack had fully appeared, he spun around and cried out, "Alright, I know you all know what's going on! One minute, I'm driving down the road, the next I get slammed in the side by some guy running a red light, and now I'm here! Will you explain this already?"

"We told you," David explained patiently. "There are more people coming. It'll be easier if we explain it once everybody's here."

The man wasn't satisfied at all and immediately started nervously pacing around the room.

"So who isn't here yet?" Jack asked David.

"Just Jim," he replied. "And it seems like there are going to be people who weren't here last time as well."

"Looks like we've got another arrival," Harrison pointed out, and everybody turned to see as three distinct beams of light shot out from the surface of the sphere instead of one. They each manifested into a person.

If the steely-eyed man in the corner had weirded Alex out, then these men absolutely terrified her. They were the scariest-looking group of people she'd ever seen, especially the one in the middle. Just looking him in the eyes made her feel incredibly unsafe. But likely the most frightening and by far most notable part of their appearances were the numerous holes in their shirts that appeared to her as if they were made by gunfire. However, despite their intimidating demeanors, the confused, horrific expressions on their faces were unmistakable.

"What in the hell?" One of the men, a short, stocky fellow with a bowl cut, cried.

"Where is this?" one of the others inquired, this one a tall, skinny man with slicked-back hair.

David, made noticeably more nervous by the presence of these men, chimed in, "We can explain everything. We just need to wait one more minute for anyone else to arri–"

"I think you'll explain it to us now," said the man in the middle, stepping forward. His cold, demanding voice was even more frightening than his appearance. Alex immediately decided that this was _not_ a man she wanted to go against. Evidently David decided the same thing.

"Uh, okay, sure," he said nervously. "I guess we can just … explain it again if anyone else shows up." He cleared his throat, trying to keep his composure. "Alright, as you all have probably guessed by now, no, you aren't dead. Or at least, not anymore anyway. This thing–" he pointed his finger at the black ball in the middle of the room. "–brought you all back from the dead just like it did for us. In a minute, it's going to start singing and open up. Inside is going to be a cache of weapons and equipment. Then this thing is going to give us a … target. Then it's going to send us on a hunt. If we manage to make it back alive, then we get to go home. At least for a while anyway."

Alex could tell he wanted to avoid saying the word "monster" or "alien" so as to avoid completely losing them, but she could also see that none of them were buying it anyway.

"This is just ridiculous!" cried out the man in the suit, throwing his hands up. "Here I thought you actually had some sort of explanation but apparently you're just some dumb kid making up ghost stories!"

"So we've got to off somebody, eh?" the tall, skinny man asked with a smirk on his face. "No problem for us, right?" The man who Alex assumed was their leader or something gave him a cold look as if telling him to shut up before he got knifed.

Alex was taken aback by the man's declaration and her general uneasiness around these men instantly devolved into legitimate terror. These men were killers!

"I'm not making any of this up," David insisted, not having heard the tall stranger's comment. "You'll see for yourself in a min–"

"_Atarashi asa ga kita. Kibou no asa ga,_" the ball began to sing loudly.

"Huh?" Alex asked, confused. "That's it? But … where's Jim?

"I don't know," David muttered, equally confused.

"_Sore: ichi … ni … san!_" The song finished up and the ball opened, revealing its contents to the occupants of the room. The murderous crew gasped, the timid suit gawked in disbelief, and the man in the corner merely raised an eyebrow curiously.

Your lives have ended.

How you used your new lives is entirely up to me.

That's the theory anyway.

Jack had started to grab the suitcases from the ball. "Inside here are suits which will make you stronger and tougher when you need to be," he explained. "There's one for each of us."

The leader of the gang of men was already checking out one of the long rifle-shaped guns. Skirting around him to get to the stack where the suitcases were, Alex looked for hers. Jack, David, and Harrison had already taken theirs and left, leaving only six remaining. She lifted the top one and read the name off. "Is there a Sean Jameson here?"

The steely-eyed man sitting in the corner of the room looked surprised, but tentatively stood up and came over to her, collecting the suitcase and taking it away to examine it.

She picked up the next one. "How about Vincent Cole?" she asked.

She felt a hand on her shoulder and turned around. The leader of the gang of men was staring directly at her and she suddenly froze, unable to move. He slowly reached towards the suitcase and grabbed it from her hands, then walked away.

She stood in place for a moment longer, stunned at having been so close to that man. She looked down at the next case in the pile and, seeing "Alex Summer" written on it, quickly grabbed it and ran off into the other room to change, hoping to put as much distance as possible between her and this "Cole" guy.

She changed clothes in the kitchen adjacent to the black ball room. The suit was a tight fit to say the least. Getting the thing on was a trick, but she managed it eventually, and neatly folded the clothes she'd been wearing into the case the suit came in.

She caught her reflection in a mirror. Seeing herself in the strange black suit was odd. And she didn't really feel any stronger than usual. Was what happened with David just a fluke? Could there really be anything special about a black spandex suit?

She shrugged it off and returned to the room where she saw that everyone had returned and was crowded in front of the ball. David, Jack, and Harrison had donned the suits, as well as that Vincent Cole guy. The timid man and the two lackeys had apparently opted out, as well as the big guy Alex had handed the case to. What had his case said his name was again? Sean something-or-other?

Alex looked at the information written on the screen of the ball and her heart skipped a beat. This wasn't right! No way!

"So this is the 'target', huh?" Cole stated, lifting his rifle. "Should be easy enough."

Alex continued to stare, because the picture on the screen staring back at her wasn't some feral monster or bizarre alien. It was a boy. A red-headed boy, hair parted to the side, faint smile on his face.

Richard Gregory

Characteristics: Tall, red-haired

Likes: Books, Stars

Dislikes: Homework, Daytime Television

Favorite Phrases: "Insane!"

"Do we really have to … kill this boy?" the timid man in the business attire asked.

"No," Jack said frantically. "No, no, no! This is wrong! It's not supposed to be a person! It's supposed to be an alien or some kind of monster! We aren't supposed to kill people!"

"Alien?" asked the short lackey. "The hell are you smoking, kid?"

"Son," said the business suit man indignantly. "You kids have told enough ridiculous stories for one night. Now stand aside and let the adults handle this." He lifted one of the handguns from the black ball.

"Who in the hell do you think you're talking to?" Harrison shouted, lifting the man with one arm and pinning him to the wall. This was Harrison's first time accessing the suit's herculean strength. He'd probably only meant to give the man a good shove, but he looked noticeably winded as he struck the wall.

"Hey, isn't that Jim?" Jack asked, examining the red-headed boy on the screen.

"No," Alex replied. "See, the name says Richard Gregory."

"It sure looks like Jim."

Alex looked closer. He was right. Ignoring the different hairstyle this kid looked identical to the boy who had been with them on the previous mission.

"So when are we going to get to ice this kid?" asked the tall, lanky man. He was noticeably excited at the prospect of murdering somebody.

"Just stop!" David shouted. Everybody turned to him. "This is … this is all wrong. We can't do this! We're not supposed to be killing people! We have to–" He was swiftly silenced by a rifle pointed directly at his face.

"You were the one who told us, if I'm not mistaken, that if we track down and kill whatever shows up on that screen, then we get out of here, am I right?" Cole asked, holding the gun to David's head.

"Yes, but–" The mouth of the gun jabbed into David's forehead and he shut up.

Alex was scared. They didn't know what would happen if a person was shot with those guns, even wearing one of the suits.

Harrison angrily jumped towards Cole, but was stopped when the two lackeys drew guns of their own, one of the handguns and one of the strange, y-shaped ones. Harrison stopped in his tracks, fuming.

"Now then," said Cole. "We're going to do what _we _do best, and go kill this boy. And if _any_ of you try to stop us, then I'll kill you. It's as simple as that."

Alex was shaking. What were they going to do? They couldn't kill this boy. But how were they going to get home? What was going to happen?

Suddenly, the information on the black ball vanished, replaced by a timer counting down from sixty minutes. The transport light appeared and the occupants of the room started to disappear from the head down. Alex shook, terrified, as the room around her vanished entirely.

* * *

David swiftly slammed his fist angrily into a nearby wall, causing the brick to crack and bits to crumble and fall away. "_Damn it!_" he screamed. "_God damn it!_" He had been such an idiot back there. How could he let those guys walk all over him like that? He felt like such a fool for sitting there like a deer in headlights when that gun was trained on him.

Starting to regain his composure a bit, David looked around. Jack and Harrison had both been transported to the same place as him. Alex and the new people were nowhere to be found though. Had they all been separated during the transportation? How far apart were they? He hoped that Alex was alright at least.

"What are we going to do?" Jack asked.

"Hell if I know," said Harrison.

"We can't just let them kill that kid," insisted Jack. "I mean, come on!"

"You want to try fighting those guys?" Harrison asked. "Be my guest. I'll be sure to send flowers when they kill you."

"No," David said, regaining his composure. "Jack's right. We can't let them do this."

"Are we forgetting something here?" Harrison snapped indignantly. "The last time we did this, we got sent home after we killed those aliens. This time, the target's a person, but who says that changes anything? What do you think happens if we don't carry out this mission? We may never go home!"

"Wait!" Jack exclaimed, as if suddenly remembering something. "Don't you remember on that black sphere? There was a timer."

"What timer?" Harrison asked.

"No, he's right!" said David, recalling the same thing. "Right before we got transported away, there was a timer on the ball. One hour. It was the same last time. I was able to see it on that handheld device."

"So what?" Harrison asked impatiently.

"So, maybe that's how much time we have to carry out the mission," David explained. "So we don't have to stay here forever, we just have to protect that kid long enough for that timer to run out and the mission will be over."

"And then what?" Harrison asked. "What happens if we fail? We could get killed if we run out of time for all you know!"

"We have to take that chance," Jack said. "This is a human life we're talking about."

Harrison scoffed and turned around. "You two do whatever the hell you want. There's no way I'm risking my own life just to save somebody who can't protect themselves." He began to walk away.

"I saved you, didn't I?" David called out angrily. This made Harrison stop walking. "Back in that basement, during the last mission. You've been nothing but a belligerent jackass the entire time we've been doing this, and I still put my life on the line to save your ass back then! And now you're walking away like a coward when someone else is in need?"

Harrison was silent.

"Forget it," David spat. "I don't know why I'm surprised at this point. Do whatever you want. Let's go." He and Jack turned and started to walk off in the opposite direction.

"Hey!" Harrison called out. He walked up behind David, grabbed him by the shoulder, and spun him around. "_One time_," he said, very clearly. "This is the _only_ time I'm going to be sticking my neck out for anything but my own survival, got it? And after this, we are _square_. Don't go pulling any more favors for what happened back then. Got it?"

David smiled. "Sounds good to me."

Harrison was fuming. "Shit," he muttered. "I can't believe I'm doing this."

"So where are we off to?" Jack asked.

David pulled out the handheld device that they'd used in the previous mission. "Right there," he stated, pointing to the red dot on the screen.

* * *

Alex examined her new surroundings. It was a neighborhood. Thankfully, Cole and his cronies were nowhere to be found. Neither were David, Jack, and Harrison for that matter.

"Hey," said a deep voice behind her. She spun around to see Sean. She breathed a sigh of relief.

"Oh thank god it's just you," she said. "I thought you might be one of those–"

"Quiet," he said firmly. Alex was taken aback. This guy was kind of a jerk. "Come on," he said.

"What?" she asked. "'Come on' where?"

"To find that kid," he stated plainly. "Normally you'd be dead weight, but you and those other kids seem to know a lot more about this whole thing than I do, so I need you to come with me."

"I'm not helping you kill anybody!" she shouted.

"I'm not trying to kill anyone," he said. "I just need to find that kid."

Alex was surprised. "Do you mean you want to … save him? From _those_ guys?"

"To be honest, I could care less about that kid, or anyone for that matter," Sean stated. "But I'm not just some weapon to be used for killing people. Not anymore. And I don't like when people try to make me something I'm not. So if whoever's running this show wants me to kill that kid, then I'm sure as hell going to do everything I can to keep him alive."

This guy still creeped Alex out a bit, but she could feel the sincerity in his words. "Ok," she muttered, nodding her head. "I'll help." Even as she said it though, she wondered exactly what she was getting herself into.


End file.
